The present invention relates to a portable telephone. The term "portable telephone" used herein includes a general cordless telephone.
The ultimate object of communication is, of course, to transmit, or exchange, thought or information from anywhere to, or with, anyone, anytime, immediately. In addition to conventional communications between two fixed points, mobile communications are being progressively developed. The mobile communications are those held by mobile bodies (including human beings) such as ships, motor vehicles, airplanes, etc. with the general subscription telephone system, offices, etc. and those between mobile bodies. Lately, portable telephones and cordless telephones as kinds of mobile communications are being extensively developed.
Reduction in size is an important factor for promoting practical use of the portable telephone. On one hand, reduction in size of the portable telephone has become easier because parts small in size and low in cost are made available with progress in the technology for fabricating related devices, but on the other hand, requirement for consideration of human engineering on account of the fact that the telephone must be used with the receiver held to the human ear seems to be preventing the reduction in size. Under these circumstances, there are demands for achieving the reduction in size of the portable telephone while paying due regard to human engineering.
Telephone sets in general are used with the receiving portion held to the ear and the transmitting portion held toward the mouth. Even with the portable telephone, the receiving portion and transmitting portion must be kept a sufficient distance apart and therefore the portable telephone itself has had to be shaped in a somewhat elongated form.
The conventional portable telephone has involved a problem that its reduction in size is not sufficiently attainable because the distance between the receiving portion and the transmitting portion on the main body of the telephone has been set to be virtually equal to the distance between the ear and the mouth of the user. Thus, while it is made relatively easier to produce small-sized portable telephones because small sized and low cost parts constructing the portable telephone are made available with the progress in the fabricating technology of the parts, the requirement for consideration of human engineering to secure a distance corresponding to that between the ear and the mouth between the receiving portion and transmitting portion has been a factor preventing the reduction in size.